First Causes

On 14 Sep 2004 03:19:01 -0700, dralexgreen at yahoo.co.uk (Alex Green) in
comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>lesterDELzick at worldnet.att.net (Lester Zick) wrote in message news:<4144695e.8291314 at netnews.att.net>...
>> On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 16:47:32 GMT, Paul Victor Birke
>> <nonlinear at rogers.com> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>>>> >OK Lester, slowly absorbing your comments!
>> >
>> >thanks
>> >
>> >Paul
>> >
>> >PS If I could just say you are arguing that a change is by definition a
>> >difference and the first change as it were must therefore be a delta or
>> >difference in its essential form. If this too crude a summary?
>> >
>> >Paul
>>>> Hi Paul -
>>>> It's hard to agree or disagree. Differences certainly result in change
>> and all change originates in differences. But if we rely on change in
>> conventional terms to define differences, we may well exclude other
>> aspects of differences which do not necessarily result in change. I'm
>> thinking here of apparently static differences which define space, for
>> example.
>>>>Asserting that space can only be defined by differences is equivalent
>to stating that all information must be encoded. ie: a location of one
>point is taken then a location of another point is taken and an output
>1 is made if they are different. This is actually equivalent to
>building in an assumption that information systems theory (and pre
>twentieth century physics) applies to all phenomena.
I have no idea what you mean by encoded or the other terms you use
here. What you have in terms of universally demonstrable first causes
are differences, and differences between differences, and the results
of those differences are whatever they are. If certain results coexist
with respect to one another and yet differ from each other, they are
said to exist in space. There is no other way to know space or time or
anything else, for that matter, except in terms of differences and
differences between differences and that principle compounded in terms
of itself because there is no other first cause other than differences
applicable to anything. (The phrase differences between differences is
not the same as the self contradictory alternative different from
differences.)
>See: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~lka/strongai.htm>>It is evident from the homunculus argument that somewhere in the brain
>the state or form of brain activity takes over from simple encoding.
As noted in my collateral reply nothing in what I suggest has anything
to do with computationalism as far as the mechanical implementation of
sentience or machine or artificial intelligence is concerned except
with respect to modeling.
Regards - Lester